Shahidul Alam's arrest signifies the state of freedom of speech in Bangladesh

admin | 27 September, 2018

Shahidul Alam was arrested by police in Bangladesh, but it was initiated from the top of Bangladeshi government. Everyone is talking about this issue, but none is trying to go in depth of the issue. For last many years, we had been fighting against government to remove the so called ICT law, by which government can arrest anyone anytime and make anyone's life miserable. This law had been critisized by everyone around the world apart from Sheikh Hasina government. Government is abusing this law to keep everyone's mouth shut. From history we know, government used to use laws against opposition political parties, now we can see governmnet is abusing laws against civil societies, journalists, bloggers, online activists, students etc.

Arrest of Shahidul Islam, shows the real face to the international community what this mad government is doing. This is not the only arrest this government has made, there are thousands more. This arrest at least caught the eyes of international media. His fault was, he shared his view with media freely which this government did not like. This government treat everyone in this country as their slaves. And if you are not supporting AL, you are not safe. You are not free anywhere. This government is oppressing everyone in every steps in life. Now they are even more desperate to win the next general election.

In my previous article, I mentioned and predicted what would happen with the students' protest regarding road safety. Now it's a reality what I said. But the government did miss the main point here, which is students are very powerful to the political arena of Bangladesh. They were not asking anything illegal. Government could have listen to their demand and should have taken steps to recognise that. Instead, students were arrested and journalists like, Mr. Shahidul Alam were harrassed and arrested for telling the truth. Now who is more patriotic here? Government or students?

This government will probably not be able the vanish Shahidul Alam like previous politicians, as this has caught the eyes of international media. But government is not willing to correct their mistake done. Instead, they are taking the hard line about arrests made in the name of ICT law. Now though they are saying that they are going to review the law, but it's nothing but the old wine in a new bottle. Freedom of speech in Bangladesh was never existed, now it's getting worse. Government does not allow anyone to criticize them or publish anything against them in print, electronic or online media.

This is now or never. General public of the whole country need to understand that they are next in line to be arrested by this mad Sheikh Hasina goverment or may next by her son. AL needs to be replaced by young leadership who wants to do some good thing for the country.